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Hey everyone!

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Limit Theory Fan Contest!
This month's edition will be about Creation/Manufacturing. This is a very broad subject, I'm sure many of you already have great ideas about this.

Like October's edition, everybody will be able to make two submissions. One submission can be of any type (excluding animations), the other has to be animation. This can be in the form of video, animated gif or even flipping some papers rapidly.

This contest will have 4 prizes. One prize is set aside for the best animation. Three other prizes are for the top three submissions (of all forms combined, except for the winning animation), each entrant can only win one prize.

The objective: Create art about Limit Theory.
This could be in written form as a story, lore, or a detailed idea for a mod. It could be visual like a gif, photoshop or video. Or even audio... Anyone up for a bit of stand-up about Limit Theory?
These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, but I'm sure you guys can think of a lot more. It is fine to use other games' assets in your submissions.
Rule of thumb: "Does it spotlight Limit Theory?".

The prizes:

A voucher for the £5.99 bracket on steam, gog or another (reasonable) site. (donated by Victor)

The other rewards will be announced soon.

The rules:

The artwork needs to be about Limit Theory per the objective.

Everybody is free to enter but can only submit two entries to the contest. You are free to change or replace your submission for as long as the contest is open.

If you have submitted more than one work, you need to be very clear about which one you're entering. If there is any doubt, the entry latest, per type, in the forum thread will be judged.

All contest submissions have to be made as a reply to this thread.

Judges are not barred from making a submission themselves, but their submissions can't be scored.

The contest will be open to new submissions until Sunday 2014/12/07, 23:59 GMT+1 (CET).

Note: if you're using another site to host content, make sure the title and comment displays that it's part of a contest submission.
This only to avoid future googlers from becoming confused when looking for official content.

Judging:
Our jury of three people will judge the submissions based on the following criteria:

Originality: 30%

Aesthetic: 25%

Details: 10%

X factor: 20%

Realism according to the LT universe: 15%

[/list]

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

after a lot of slackingPreparations
Time, the only thing that we never have enough of. People don’t die of infection anymore, but other species and their people aren’t infections. Time never stops, and so we can’t either, with this War Sun, we could ravage through several systems before the owners would have a clue that something was happening. The only problem was that the War Sun was incomplete. Typical Ravenshifters, leaving their work unfinished.
I think that it is finally time to use a few of our Zawagh science units. The Zawagh species is a very small one, I could fit a couple in the same space of my Tera device. It would seem strange that such a species could exist in space, but they have the unique ability to combine into a mass that has all of the attributes of the Zawagh in it all working in series. They easily dominated and crowded out any other species that existed on that planet. If you were to look at Zawagh architecture it is very brutal and composed of simple geometries. Nevertheless they make for fantastic engineers and scientists. One unit was composed of 200 globs and could stick to almost any surface.
Our Zawagh were quickly working and it had become apparent that what one of the more obvious things that we needed to do was to create several components to the resonance beam. How main weapon is supposed to work is quite clever. The purpose of this weapon is to destroy as many things as possible. In its first stage it sends out a carrier sized pod containing a thick gas and an omnidirectional transfer beam. All the transfer beam could do was pull in everything surrounding closer to it. The gas is constantly released to allow for a connection between the War Sun and the pod. Once the second phase has been signalled, an electric surge is sent through the gas, disabling all electronics within the field. Phase three uses the resonance beam to send a frequency through the gas that will either kill the crew of the ships or causes the ships to shatter, thus killing the crew.
The foundry on Udroise was the only place we would be able to obtain such parts. Udroise was an artificial planet, made completely of Ithuqum, a metal that expands when given an electrical charge. Udroise was known for it’s excellent foundries, which layered the planet as if it was a massive spherical building. Each layer was amazing to watch. Drones flying with buckets of molten metal to all of their destinations took up the higher levels and the magic happened below. Udroise was mainly inhabited by the Qlurf, a species that was covered in scales, very large, but extremely dexterous, it gave them an edge when in the workshops.
A very worn out drone approached me, I gave it the schematic files that my Zawagh had given to me after analyzing the War Sun. It chirped out an accepting sound and continued on its merry way. I stood and watched the pure industrial beauty that lay before me. Sparks flew as the Qlurf hammered the glowing metal before them. Drones above them pouring metal into casts and assisting the processes taking place. What a time to be alive. Time is something that I have for now, seeing that the parts won’t be done instantly. I checked my Tera device for any new happenings, which there were none of, and continued to explore Udroise.

Background story:
This was the logical development of the 3D printing. Once it became possible to co-print different materials synthetized online, any object could be made assuming a complete blueprint and enough raw materials and energy.
A whole new business sector came out of it, replacing many niche and luxury manufacturer.
Here we have a view of one of the well protected site of the famous intergalactic company "Print your Ship", where whole spaceships can be printed with its private technological system.

Note:
This does not even come to 10% of the quality I would like to achieve, but it's for me a new software and the deadline is just too short. I cannot even improve tomorrow as rendering is over 25h on my i7 3.1 GHz... There is not even a soundtrack. But hey, better submit something (even in a rough status) then just trashing it - it is a chance to have hopefully many tips to improve this draft.

Entry time!
My entry is called "A Hard Day's Work". (Clickedy click to go to the DA page where you can download the bigger resolution version)
I know we're probably not gonna see scenes like this in LT 1.0. Hope you like it

What if?... What if "Limit theory" was not fiction rooted presumably on an idealized enlightened world far away, and not in another time?
What if Limit Theory was our world, now? How could this be?
Imagine that Nikola Tesla had benefited the world with scientific accomplishments. That T.T.Brown really had developed electrogravitic technology. It is not the early 1900's any longer, it is now after the year 2000; Where would we be?
***********************************************************
A fiction about GRAVITY TECHNOLOGY for Limit theory.
Okay, imagine a Light emitting diode (L.E.D.) a tiny electronic component that works like a light bulb. Keep this in mind as I take you on this little tour.
**********************
LESSON ONE: Fundamental Force Coupling - There are fundamental forces in physics; for this topic we discuss only two. Electromagnetic force (EM) is 1X10^42 stronger than Gravity (G). There are theories that imply, show, and prove conversion of one force into another. The tiny electronic part if it can convert a portion of EM force into G (*even at a greatly reduced efficiency than a ratio of1x10^42), you would get a rather astonishing effect! instead of requiring a Jupiter sized amount of negative mass energy to generate a "sloppy" warp field a Gravity Wave Projector drive can generate a warp bubble without negative mass energy. Gravity wave projector technology does not generate true gravitons, the effect is more so a bending of space akin to gravity or anti-gravity effects. As "True Gravity" is a property of mass, Gravity Wave projectors become less efficient in the presence of "true Gravity".

Grade school question: Why build starships with Gravity technology? the answer is that magnetism affects only magnetic materials while Gravity affects everything that has mass.

LESSON TWO: "Gravity is easy", the science of Spacecraft gravity and gravity based inertial compensation- Scientists point out that a Localized Gravity Zone (Or LGZ) applied to a spacecraft greatly mitigate the dangers of inertia posed by extreme maneuvering. Spacecraft engineers point out that Gravity Wave Projectors (henceforth G.W.P.) can be applied to deck plating through out the interior of a space craft to provide a healthy one G environment. GWP systems are highly energy efficient and are incorporated into most modern "Environmental/Life support" power allocation systems.

Grade school question: Why is a single large gravity generator the wrong way to go?
A single large gravity generator would act in a straight line to the center of other nearby masses; meaning the only place you could "Stand up" would be directly over said large gravity generator...

Wings in space? while trans-atmospheric flight is a ready excuse for the need to have "wings" on a space craft, the truth is that these structures can serve to house a wide variety of sensor systems that depend on long sensing elements, an minimal parallax (Two or more sensing locations separated by a distance) to accurately determine distances, speed, and direction. Wings can also be support structures for Diamond nanotube heat sinks that radiate excess heat out away from the body of the space craft and back into space. Thermionic power systems help to convert the heat in a spacecraft into energy for use, but such a system does have a limit. Wings can also serve as a large array of antennas for communications and sensor purposes. With thrusters (type 1: Hall effect- ducted fission exhaust, Type 2: EM drive- resonant microwave cavity, type 3: Gravity wave projector) being placed at the Ends of long Rigid booms you can increase the mechanical levering or torque on a spacecraft. Thus "wings" can be essential in helping a spacecraft to sense, communicate, and maneuver.

Jet engines in space? within a solar system G.W.P. intakes enable fission drives to gather fuel from the vacuum of space. Space isn't an absolute vacuum; It is estimated that there is one hydrogen atom per cubic meter. This is important as a spacecraft traveling at Fractional Lunar Distance (FLD) speeds, say 25,000 KmPH will gather fuel from space. How much? if the space craft intake is one square meter that one hour of travel gathers 25,000,000 atoms; but that is less than Avogadro's Number, which is roughly 6.02x10^23 atoms. translation - you need a more efficient method of gathering "H" to replenish fission thrust fuel. This is where GWP tech comes in handy. The external effect of a spacecraft GWP systems serves to draw fuel into to your intakes as if your intake radius is your spacecraft's cubic volume. The hard science fiction classic of electromagnetic Bussard ram jets doesn't work. Magnetism only affects magnetic materials, you need gravity to help your scoops to scoop fuel from space. Note: this kind of fuel replenishment can not be used in micro-warp (FAUST) nor Warp travel as Warp dynamics are applied to deflect everything from the path of the spacecraft traveling at those speeds.

Fractional Astrometric Unit Speed Travel (FAUST) - Space is an inconceivably vast almost empty nothingness. Even travel at FLD speeds seem to be a crawl if you are going from Mercury to Pluto. The weak space distortion effect caused by gravity technology can act as a multiplier for your current velocity. Some call this "Micro warp" travel. FAUST speeds are approximately ten times faster than Fractional lunar distance speeds. On average 250,000 Kmph. however, FAUST speeds require the G.W.P. systems produce a strong enough distortion to be enabled. thus the presence of a natural gravity well (natural gravity from a mass greater than your ship) greatly decreases the efficiency of G.W.P. devices.This causes the energy demand to exceed what our technology can generate and the "micro-warp" field fails. you can not ram a planet, moon, mini-planetoid, or even a space station with micro-warp.

Tractor beams: How do you get propulsion from a gravity wave projector? Gravity obeys the inverse square rule, and always acts from the center of a mass along a straight line to the center of another mass. That means all forces are in balance on a stationary object. What does the gravity wave projector do? it allows us to place a gravity like effect that is *NOT* acting from the center of a mass. Thus an imbalance, and the stationary object Moves. This is the key behind Anti-Gravity thrusters as well.

Distortion Shielding: the distortion effect serves to make spacecraft harder to hit. A spacecraft's "shields" are not feeble screens of energy to be defrayed at the slightest impact. this would be pitting your power plant and shield effectiveness against an enemies weapons and that is a waste of power! the best solution to space combat is that distortion shielding reduces the effectiveness of damaging attacks as less of the weapon effect can actually reach your spacecraft.

Refractive Cloak: Warp travel indirectly enables the use of a relativistic loophole enabling a spacecraft to travel effectively at Faster Than Light speeds. The side effect is that ships traveling at warp can not see where they are going, nor can the destination detect the spacecraft. As this effect is achieved with a warp bubble, it may be possible to design a variant of the warp drive to create a "Refractive cloak" that conceals a spacecraft from detection inside a warp bubble. However, as GWP becomes less efficient in the presence of true gravity neither FTL warp, nor refractive cloaking can function within the true gravity radius of a mass greater than the ship generating the effect.

LESSON FOUR: How is this not a "Reactionless thruster"?
1. A submarine doesn't carry tanks of water to squirt against the propeller; the submarine turns the propeller against the "Water" that is already there...
2. The use of this device does not create thrust; not anymore than a skier at the top of mountain has only muscle power to get to the bottom.
3. The Effect of gravity is accessing an OUTSIDE force. Thus gravity wave projectors can't be used as a closed system, this means that a gravity wave projector is not a perpetual engine or other overunity device!

LESSON FIVE: FTL Warp metrics - creating a warp bubble. Bending the fabric of space is a loophole around the Speed of light. You technically might not be moving, when you are traveling at warp. Thus you aren't actually going "FASTER", you are taking a short cut to cheat a way through the distance. Thus no time travel and warp travel does not impart any inertia.
Shaping a warp field to best serve a star ship is akin the science of aerodynamics and is thus named "Warp dynamics". A warp bubble can serve to deflect debris from a spacecraft path as the field may resemble a boat wake, only projecting this protective wake *Ahead* of the boat (*as well as around the boat). Obviously, if you are travelling at warp objects of equal mass or less than your space craft are pushed aside.

Grade School Question: Can you ram a planet with a ship at FTL warp?
No. Anything with a larger mass will defeat a warp bubble. This why there is no "Insystem" FLT. If you want to generate a warp bubble you need to move your spaceship to a Lagrange point. also, A spacecraft snared by a tractor beam can not establish a warp bubble for FTL Travel.

Grade School Question: "What about energy accumulation?"
Yes, particles of mater and energy can enter a warp field, but they roll out away with the area of space that expands back to normal behind your starship. A warp bubble is frictionless distorted space. So there is no gamma burst of cosmic death when you come to a stop after travelling at warp. Travel Via a warp bubble is not acceleration at all.

WARP TRAVEL NOTES: while Faust travel requires a weak distortion field (micro-warp) to function, such a field can be established near any LaGrange point or micro-gravity area of star system space. Warp travel between stars requires you to move to a location that lines you up with the "Gravity lane" (an imaginary path created by the gravity of one star, to an immediately adjacent star). To form a star to star warp you should be preferably as far from the center of the local star gravity well as possible and as close to the center of the gravity lane as possible. This isn't travel by a physical "warp gate" but a naturally occurring zone of space. (*Game mechanics wise, this prevents "gate camping" which is lame and lazy pirating. if I as a player have to work hard to get rich - pirates ought to have to work much harder to take it from me) this zone of space for warp-jumps could be as large an astrometric unit in diameter. Many of the hazards of warp jumping have been mitigated and intelligent agent programs will not enable a warp jump that exceeds safety parameters.

Because of the need to fully establish a warp bubble for jumping to a distant star there is a significant energy cost, and a time delay before warp can commence. Furthermore, warp travel occurs at a speed of One Light Day in distance, in the span of approximately one second time. Warp traveling the distance of one light year requires ten minutes. thus a six light year warp jump would require an hour of "Flight time".

Warp jump travel is blind as it is travel that occurs faster than the speed of light. In fact nothing can detect a ship travelling via warp not at the exit point, nor at the destination point. as warp travel is limited to the gravity lane between stars and travel must be between adjacent stars, space navies can be positioned to defend star systems and Some star systems may potentially have a tactical advantage for inter-stellar war in terms of resources and warp jump connections. Explorer space craft use a small warp probe called a "Path plotter" which probes the safety of the warp destination point of a ship before returning. if your probe does not return, it is probably not a safe location to jump to.

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The state of computing in Limit Theory

Earth 2010 or so, Ray Kurzwil said, " My android phone is literally several billion times more powerful per dollar, than the computer I used when I was a student. It is also 100,000 times SMALLER. We'll do both those things again in 25 years. The computers then will be a billion times more powerful, and will be the size of a red blood cell." this predicition is followed by a paper detailing the technology that could make it happen. the paper referenced the work of several labs highlighting advances in "Atomic construction", "Single atom transistors", "Single atom Q-bits", "future quantum computing", "nanowire", "3-d architecture" and more. One of the most commonly used words in these papers and reports; the word "Now".

This is a Petaflop of Memory, and a petaflop of processing, in a computer the size of a red blood cell. What does this mean for limit theory? currently inconceivable computing power could occupy a spot that our eyes can not see. For all intents and purposes; computers will likely be printed into a solid article of furniture and children born today will likely develop a basic shared User Interface so that everyone knows where to look to use features.

Convergence of media will be complete, any media for any task that can be digitally communicated will be available through these computers. Entire lives can be recorded in a miniscule spec.
Information is virtually instantaneous and everywhere- Every person benefits from augmented reality and constant Virtual space education
Virtual space will be more vibrant, in some ways more so real than the real world. where a child of the 70's bought the massive toy collections of the 80's not knowing the damage that junk meant to the environment; a child of the 20teens like 2014 will have infinite space, infinite resources, and infinite toys to play with. these toys only exist in virtual space. not one plant was harvested to produce synthetic plastics, not one chemical was poured, not even a puff of factory smoke, not one slave laborer working at gun point, no rusting mammoth cargo vessels, not warehouses, no forklifts, no trucks, no retail store, no drive to the mall, and no drive home...

The vast majority of jobs as we know them today will not exist after 2030.

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Holography... "auras" understood scientifically as natural free standing holography, turned into new display technology and superior medical diagnostic imaging.
Experiments with Gass discharge visualization and nano reflector arrays result in holographic displays with a resolution that is far beyond what the human eye can comprehend. as this technology is rooted in a scientific discovery concerning "auras", another application of this technology resulted in superior holographic medical diagnostic imagery.

*****************************************************************************
Will life in limit theory be a post Apocalyptic Cyberpunk trash heap as exponential population explosion brings ruin to the universe?
Arc Plasma recyclers will strip matter down to individual atoms, A new set of "Hot-spectrum" electromagnetic sorters will sift the debris into individual chemicals to be stored in vacuum canisters. these canisters of raw chemical elements will inject atoms for Angstrom construction probes, that will create the "Ink" used by molecular printers. as the foundation of this future recycling technology is atomic construction the common person will give it the nick name "Nom".
Thus Arc recycling mountains of human waste and molecular printing new mega cities will be "nom-nom-nom".

*****************************************************************************
Many devices will harbor Jellied helium super-cooled Lead or other forms of "Meisner effect" as INSULATION against magnetic lines of flux. This protects circuits from EMP, cross induction, and even larger construction from Magneto-strictive damage. Electric motors, power generators.

***************************************************************************
Inflatable outermost hulls: Space construction uses atmo-inflation of tailored hulls. Tailored and cut these sheets will take on specific shapes once inflated and leave gaps for the insertion of docking collars even hangar doors.
The sheets of outer hull is made of super strong materials like Anti-ballistic weave carbon nanotube yarns. The outer primary hull and secondary hull have the space between them filled with an injectable gel. The gel is placed under 20 psi pressure between the layers. This Gel has a few properties:
___1.) Impacts on the outer hull would be spread through the gel, greatly reducing damage from kinetic energy.
___2.) The Gel is an impressive anti-radiation barrier.
___3.) The gel foams, expands, and hardens when exposed to oxygen. a breach in the hull allows the gel to expand into the gap contact with the air causes the breach to seal almost instantly. Breaches too large to be sealed by the expanding gel are countered by "Spider fab" systems that can run across the hull to build temporary patches. http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_s ... erfab.html

The Sheet of the outer hull, the gell properties and the hull inner sheet are dopped to function as thermionic power generation. Excessive heat from space, ship power plant, drives, and weapons, (even the occupants) serve to return some power to the ship's power grid.
****
Unbreakable hardpoints!

Insulated Cables can be "Sewn" through the Hull to create mounting points, transmit power, data, through the hull in either direction (to inside or to outside). Reaction control systems, countless sensors, and communication devices, can be firmly anchored to the hull via molecular hooks that hold on with meta-material enhanced Casmir force (1.5 trillion lbs of force) attachments won't come off and serve to contribute to the overall strength of the hull.

Comments of the jury in order of submission (Unfortunately, one of our judges declined to post comments):
LaShaine:

Very pretty, I like the idea of seeing a station under construction, but the words...threw me off and left me a bit confused.

I'm not sure what the text says, and it doesn't seem to match the rest of the image. It all feels very peaceful, though. Overall, I like it!

Lum:

The exceptional amount of detail you put into this is impressive! Nice work! That said, I'm not sure the weathered parchment look quite matches LT. I'd still like to make blueprints like this!

Ha! I genuinely laughed out loud, very nice interpretation of the theme

N810:

I like it, it looks great, (I love the bluegreen metal) but I’m afraid I don’t see that this has much to do if anything with creation or manufacturing. If the theme was trading, I would give this a higher score.

Nice ship design. Especially the irridescent colors. I feel like the picture is very empty, though. You could probably add something else in next time so the scene doesn't feel so empty.

Slymodi:

I wasn't entirely sure what was going on. Perhaps you could elaborate on the universe a little more? I did find what parts you elaborated on to be enjoyable.

An interesting, if sparse story. It was a bit hard to read and the wording seemed a bit clunky at times. You should practice on your imagery a bit more, your interesting premise could have been made so much richer if your words carried more weight and density. This is definitely a story about creation and manufacturing, but thats all it is, It’s context seemed entirely tacked on and fake :/

DanielW:

Once again, absolutely beautiful work, it is awesome to see such a great artist among us. Your piece is beautiful and enigmatic and genuinely awe-inspiring. In part with that awe though, I am somewhat confused as to what is going on here, is this a factory? is it terraforming? is it a planet factory? I could honestly see it as any of those things, but I think it lacks a bit of clarity in the message.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with Limit Theory, but I can't deny that it is absolutely gorgeous. It looks like the cover for a book.

CSE:

A little too abstract for my tastes, but that aside, you have quite the eye for detail! I can see why it took so long to render. (Still kind of hard to see, though! )

Brilliant! This is very much how I imagine production in the future to be, as a criticism though, the flashy poof in which the actual ship appears seems too much like a magic trick, and not like an industrial process. Given the time constraints though, not bad at all

Dinosawer:

Cool idea of a pit crew working on their little shuttle, not a grand ship, but a sweet little ride. Also, nice to see companion cubes have a long future with humanity.

It's neat to look at the past and see how much you've improved. Even better is to look back that long and realize you weren't all that bad to begin with. And of course I didn't miss the companion cube!

HowSerendipitous:

I will admit: this gave me the chills. It may have at least partially been Jeremy Soule's music. That doesn't mean this video is any less brilliant though.

Very nice animation, good to see you are making continued use of previous entries, and it looks as though you are getting to show us scenes from a single coherent story. If not, you should definitely consider it.

ChadHale:

I...dont...even… WOW! This was easily one of the most impressive thought experiments I have seen since Thymine’s best posts and ranks up there as one of the best, most well thought-out posts on these forums. I had to read it three times to digest it all, and remain very impressed. Bravo!

An excellent attempt to give Limit Theory's story roots in our own universe, though difficult to follow at times.

Due to some unforeseen circumstances (namely, Katorone disappearing), I'm not entirely sure what to do about this month's prizes. I don't actually have any prizes to give, unfortunately... but I'm glad we at least finally got this resolved. Thank you again to the jury and thank you to everyone who participated!